On this reissue for label Crucial Blast, Grey Daturas play a stout guitar/bass/drums slug fest with deep roots in Stooges blues-based miasmal sprawl and messy heaviness. GD never seeks to rock like the Stooges did, but instead take their cue and then move out to detonated peripheries explored by the Dead C et al. I'm not sure they really bring anything new to the table here, but what they do is more than satisfying. Some suckers claim entire forms of music to be dead, mistaking their own fatigue (and gullibility to theoretical guff) with certain genres for the overall demise of such. It's a fallacious claim. It all depends on what any given artist brings to the table, and the Daturas bring knives; lots and lots of knives. They also bring a tenderness for their cutlery.

While I may not be as inclined to listen to this as often as I might have been 15 years ago, it still quenches when there's a thirst for a three-piece thug-out. And they alternate so effortlessly from form destroying instrumental blather to bruising, leaden psych. ?Dead In The Woods? is worthy of the attention of all fans of stoner rock such as Sleep.

The recording is vibrant,live. On the blues smoker ?She Was The Cutie Of Camp Cooke,? a plodding, ?5 to 1? styled basso continuo barrel eater, the snare sizzles as the guitar gets and stays revved and radiant. It's one of the more rocked-out cuts and makes me feel like I'm 15, even more than tanking a pint of GHB and dreaming of phosphorescent pink panties swathed and glowing under a silver summer moon. The record throws sparks of life energy and is a big wet poke in the third eye. 8/10 -- P. Somniferum (8 January, 2008)